


Helen of Troy

by Archaeopteryx_Feather



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: F/M, Romantic Comedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx_Feather/pseuds/Archaeopteryx_Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a Decepticon mind-control plot goes awry, Autobot Air Commander Starscream falls madly in love with a horrid little old lady who hates everything and everyone. Will he win her heart—or end up wrapped in a straightjacket by Optimus Prime, who is beginning to suspect that his Air Commander has lost his marbles?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helen of Troy

**Author's Note:**

> What if Skyfire was never lost in the ice, and he and Starscream joined the Autobots instead? A humorous and bizarre situation results.

"If I were leader of the Autobots, the Decepticons would have been defeated eons ago," Starscream declared, raising a clenched fist. "I should be supreme leader of everything!"

The Seeker posed triumphantly, chest thrown out and head held high. Skyfire couldn't quite stifle the scandalized laugh that slipped out of him at the sight. A wave of embarrassed giggles rippled through the command center. Optimus just shook his head and looked on with bemusement. At his side, Elita-1 tried to look outraged.

"It's difficult to believe that the Decepticon high command actually behaves like that," Prowl remarked.

Starscream looked at him innocently. "Where does the Decepticon high command come into it? I was just expressing an opinion."

Ironhide gave him a friendly shove and Starscream leapt away, laughing.

"Why, you arrogant young upstart. I oughta—"

Starscream continued, "When I'm leader, you'll have to do whatever I say, so—hey cut it out!" The Seeker sought refuge behind Skyfire's back. "Kill him, Skyfire! He annoyed me!"

Skyfire offered an apologetic smile to Ironhide.

"Emergency! Code B! Code B!" Bumblebee yelled. "It's _Buckrinia_!"

The Autobots winced as though stung. Skyfire turned to look at Starscream, who was suddenly scowling.

Old Ms. Buckrinia lived on a farm several miles east of the mountain, right next to the road which the Autobots used when they responded to emergencies. She was as ornery as a one-eyed coyote, and in spite of the fact that she was apparently also stone deaf, she was always complaining about the noise they made while driving past her house or fighting with the Decepticons or doing anything at all, for that matter. Usually she just sent them angry letters, but occasionally she would take it upon herself to harangue them personally.

"There are times," Optimus mused, "When I rather would see Megatron and a Decepticon army flying overhead than Ms. Buckrinia's car sputtering up the road."

"I'll deal with her," Starscream said. "I hope she brought her shotgun, 'cause she's gonna need it!"

Without further ado the Seeker stalked outside to intercept Ms. Buckrinia's rickety car. Skyfire couldn't help but flinch as Ms. Buckrinia deliberately rammed her vehicle into Starscream's foot. The Seeker returned the favor by giving the vehicle a kick which sent one of the rusty fenders flying off.

"Communist pig!" Ms. Buckrinia shouted out the window.

"Rust spot!" Starscream shot back.

"Alright, let's keep it calm," Optimus said. "What brings you here today, Ms. Buckrinia?"

 

*     *     *

 

"What's Starscream doing now?" Disharmony whispered.

"I can't tell, there's a rock in the way," Discord replied irritably, adding, "I think he's chewing out that rattletrap of an Autobot for showing up in bad shape. I wonder why it doesn't transform?"

"Maybe it can't," Disharmony suggested, motioning for the fieldglasses. The two femmes, a neon pink tank and a pale yellow flyer, were both lying underneath the holographic projection of some large rocks. Some 500 meters from where they were hiding, the entrance to the Autobot base could be glimpsed through rocks and pine trees.

"Maybe," Discord said dubiously, stroking her broad pink chin. "I don't like this."

"Oh, come on! What could possibly go wrong? We got our holographic blind up, no problem there, we've got Elita-1 around, and there's every indication our little love darts are going to work."

"It's been _too_ easy, that's what makes me nervous. Suppose Starscream's chewing that Autobot out for not finding us sooner?"

"Really, you do think the most dreary thoughts, Discord."

"Well, here's another one—what if the Autobots think this is an assassination attempt, huh?" Both femmes grimaced at the thought.

"Let's focus on the mission, okay?" Disharmony said. "We've come too far to back out now."

Disharmony (formerly known as Harmony, but Disharmony got a lot more respect over in the Decepticon Psychological Warfare Department so she had changed it) had been a couples' psychologist before the war, specializing in helping Decepticons and Autobots alike to find and keep that perfect someone. Now, of course, she regretted pairing up the Autobot femmes with Decepticon mechs and vice versa, but oh well, they ought to know that they couldn't let a few million years of civil war get in the way of true love. Discord (formerly known as Accord) was a neuronet analyst whose job was, as she put it, "To find the sources of people's neuroses and make them worse."

The two femmes really had nothing in common except their gender and their common annoyance at being the only eligible Decepticon females within a 30 megamile radius. To enjoy their common woes, they had taken to having lunch together, a time they would spend complaining about their romantic problems and plotting how they could make the lives of their hoardes of unwanted suitors miserable.

During one of these little lunchtime sessions, Discord had made a joking remark that if she could only package up all the jealous bickering that went on over her and infuse it into the Autobot psyche, it would do more damage than the efforts of the whole Psychological Warfare Department put together. Disharmony had laughed:

"Imagine all of the love triangles! We'd have to break up their fights when we went into battle just so that we could have a turn at clonking 'em!"

"Yeah, imagine poooooor Elita-1, awash with suitors!" (Elita-1 was a favorite target for disparagement when they were feeling annoyed about femmes who had the perfect love life and never had to deal with a pack of crazed mechs fighting over them.)

"Did you know you can induce artificial love by electrifying the apicatorminal mirraneuroprocessors?" Discord had said then, sipping her energon cube.

"Yeah, my clients were always asking me if I could do that to get their beloveds to love them back. But it was illegal of course," Disharmony replied.

"Ha, too bad, you could have made some really interesting love triangles, I'll bet," Discord smirked.

"Yeah, yeah," Disharmony had agreed readily. "Just think of Optimus Prime and Perceptor fighting over Elita-1!" They broke up into laughter at the thought.

"Or how about Starscream and Optimus Prime fighting over Elita-1?" The very idea sent them into hysterics.

"I bet we could do it, you know." Discord said when she finally managed to stop laughing. There was sudden silence.

And now here they were three weeks later, ready to try out their little experiment on Air Commander Starscream, the highest-ranking Autobot around without any known girlfriend. If they succeeded, they would have glory beyond their wildest dreams and could affort to hire bodyguards to crush anyone who so much as looked at them the wrong way. If they failed (and the other Decepticons found out what they were up to) it would mean instant humiliation and millions of years of the stupidest pickup lines that had ever been invented by the minds of transformers, and they'd probably have to change their names and body structures and join the Autobots because otherwise they'd never live it down.

Then there was downright scary question of what would happen if the _Autobots_ found out about them: they would either be put in personality component storage for the rest of the war, or—worst case scenario—shot on the spot. Disharmony had sudden misgivings as she watched Discord slide the gun case out in front of her and begin to carefully remove and assemble the components of the sniper rifle. But she herself nevertheless unscrewed the protective caps on the tiny, transparent needledarts, exposing the sharp tip that should—if it struck at just the right angle and speed—be sufficient to pierce through their target's armor, leaving only the most unnoticeable hole to mark its passage. Once lodged in the neurocircuitry, the dart would convert itself into a factory which could derail Starscream's normal brain impulses and reroute them to the apicatorminal mirraneuroprocessor, causing uncontrollable feelings of helpless love toward the first femme he laid eyes upon. And since Elita-1, Optimus Prime's long-time girlfriend, was the only femme in the Autobot base... Discord set the sniper rifle up on its stand and peered into the targeting screen.

"Don't miss," Disharmony muttered.

"Look, you want to do this?" Discord said.

 

*     *     *

 

"You rusty rodent-infested trout brain!" howled Buckrinia.

"Wretched little oxidized Insecticon!" yelled Starscream back.

"Starscream—" Optimus said.

"Get a duck caught in your intake!" Buckrinia screeched, shaking her purple-veined fist.

"Go swallow a fly!"

"If I had my shotgun—"

"Then go get it!" Starscream shouted.

"Starscream!" Optimus said again, louder. "I'll handle this." His tone brooked no disagreement.

"Freak of nature!" shrilled Buckrinia. She swung the knobby end of her cane toward his foot. Starscream jerked back just in time.

"B-but—" Starscream sputtered, glancing from Optimus to Buckrinia and back again. "She—"

"I heard," Optimus said in the same tone. "Now I'll—"

Starscream didn't actually hear the rest of what Optimus was saying. One second he was retreating from Ms. Buckrinia's wild swings, the next he felt a minute pain in his head. An odd feeling began to coalesce inside of him. He stood still and looked down at Ms. Buckrinia; immediately she began to assault his foot. How brave it was for such a tiny, helpless creature to assault a heavily armed Cybertronian warrior. _Brave, ha! More like stupid_ , he thought derisively, but nevertheless the unexpected spark of admiration grew.

"You ought to be hauled to the scrapyard as junk!" Buckrinia screeched, loose strands of her iron grey ( _lovely shade, really_ , he thought) hair whipping out of her tight bun and flying around her wrinkled face. _What astonishing eyes she has too_ , he noticed for the first time. They reminded him of the different electric blue hues of a welding torch as it sizzled through metal, causing it to bubble and run with its scorching heat.

"Ms. Buckrinia," he heard Optimus saying in a far off voice, "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave now. We can discuss this at another time, when tempers have cooled."

"You big grey chicken!" Buckrinia shouted.

 

*     *     *

 

"I don't get it! He should be groveling at Elita-1's feet right now! Why is he just standing there?!" Discord growled nervously.

"You must have missed! Give me that!" Disharmony demanded, snatching the sniper rifle out of Discord's hands. She focused it on Starscream's forehead, then gently squeezed off a shot. Nothing. No reaction, no indication that the needle had even hit its target except that Starscream rubbed his head and looked around puzzledly. Meanwhile, Discord had grabbed the sniper rifle back.

"I'm going to try for the upper kitiriom package—that might work." She aimed carefully at the upper right quarter of his forehead and fired. Zero. Starscream was just standing there, not even realizing that three weeks of work and a quart of sheer nerve was going down the drain. "Fall on your knees and grovel, blast you!" Discord hissed. And suddenly she got her wish.

 

*     *     *

 

"Ms. Buckrinia, I am soooooo, soooo sorry for everything that I was saying just now. I was completely and totally wrong!" Starscream dropped to his knees to bring himself down to the level of the gorgeous apparation who was deigning to grace him with the gentle touch of her cane. "Won't you please, please forgive me?" Starscream put his hands together pleadingly and tried to look as small and pathetic as possible. He didn't want to frighten this radiant dream away! Ahhh, if only she would stay forever! Dimly he was aware of gasps and exclamations from the others, but he couldn't care less what they thought. There was only one person he cared about impressing now, and that was sweet, gentle, brave Buckrinia. How he failed to perceive her inward nobility and outward loveliness mere minutes ago was incomprehensible, but that didn't matter in the least now that he did see it.

"You're crazy, too!" she shouted. Sweeter words he had never heard!

"I am crazy!" Starscream cried. "You make me that way."

"I think he's got a blowout in his brainbox!" he heard somewhat exclaim.

"Come on, Ms. Buckrinia, time to go," Optimus said, his hand suddenly intruding between her and him. The Autobot leader pushed her gently towards her car.

"Get away from me, ya hoodlum!" shrieked Buckrinia, now banging Optimus with her cane.

"Leave her alone!" Starscream howled. He leapt to his feet and hurled his weight against Optimus, thrusting him away. Elita-1 managed to catch Optimus just before he fell backward. "I'll take you to your car," Starscream said to Ms. Buckrinia, "and I'll escort you home. And guard your house in case the Decepticons attack. And if you need any work done—"

"Don't threaten me!" Ms. Buckrinia shouted. "I can take care of myself! I may be an old woman but I'm not feeble!" She stalked over to her car and climbed inside.

"No, no!" Starscream said instantly. "You're the bravest person I've ever met! I'm so, so sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything like that, I was just trying to say that maybe if you wanted I could perhaps—"

"Stay away from me!" Ms. Buckrinia yelled out the window. The car rattled to life and she took off down the hill at a wild clip. _She_ _too_ _must love the thrill of speed to drive like that,_ Starscream thought as the car whipped around a curve and disappeared. Ms. Buckrinia was undoubtedly the most glorious creature he had ever seen or imagined. He sighed deeply, already feeling pangs of longing in her absence. What a beautiful, amazing femme!

"Oh Buckrinia, oh sweet, sweet Buckrinia," he whispered, planting a fervent kiss on the ground where she had been standing a moment before. Even the dirt she walked on was—

"What's the matter with you?" Ironhide's disbelieving voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts. He turned around and saw that the others were staring at him as though they had just been told the Decepticons had won the war and Megatron was repainting Cybertron pink. Feeling rather embarrassed at having forgotten they were watching, he climbed back to his feet.

"Me? Nothing's wrong with me—in fact I've never felt better in my life!" Then suddenly remembering what Optimus had done, he stabbed a finger at his leader and said sharply, "But if you _ever_ lay a hand on her again, it'll be the last thing you'll _ever_ do." Optics grew wider and jaws hung lower. Annoyed at being stared at, Starscream stalked around them and headed back into the base.

"What was that all about?" Bumblebee exclaimed.

"I wish I knew," Optimus replied in a puzzled tone. "Ratchet, perhaps you had better—"

"I'm on it," Ratchet said. "That looked like a malfunction if I've ever seen one."

"Did he call her 'sweet Buckrinia?'" Sideswipe muttered.

"I don't believe this!" Blaster said.

"Surreal," Mirage observed.

 

*     *     *

 

"Alright, at least *something* happened," Disharmony said, putting down the field glasses. "We don't know what, but..."

"Uh, actually, I think I do know," Discord said, tapping her on the shoulder and pointing over at the nearby road. The junky Autobot Starscream had been berating earlier was coming by them.

"What?" Disharmony asked, not understanding. "Is it a femme or something?" She couldn't tell while it was in vehicle mode.

"That's _not_ an Autobot." Discord answered, a smile in her voice. Disharmony raised her field glasses and took a careful look. Realization dawned.

"Great Cybertron, we've made him fall in love with a human woman!"

"The first femme he laid eyes on!" Discord said. "Of course with three of those things in his system he would have fallen for a rock if it had a pretty face." They watched, holding back snickers, as the car and its driver—the oldest, ugliest looking flesh creature they had ever seen—passed by in a cloud of dust, clattering down the rough road.

"Now _that's_ a likely looking couple," Disharmony observed, and she curled up in a paroxysm of mirth.

"Did you like how he kissed the ground she walked on?" Disharmony said with a gleeful grin.

"Yeah, how come our suitors never do that?" Discord demanded. "I say we raise our standards!"

"Hear hear!"

 

*     *     *

 

"Hey, Starscream, how about a checkup?" Ratchet had decided to take the direct approach. He walked straight over to where Starscream was standing in front of the main computer screen, typing commands into the console. "We were all kind of worried about you after what happened out there, and I thought we ought to do a scan or two to make sure that everything's okay."

"What?" Starscream said, seeming to have just noticed him. "A what?"

"A scan," Ratchet repeated.

"What for? I feel fine," Starscream said, stabbing a few buttons on the computer console to bring up a satellite image of a little farmhouse.

"Yes, but you always feel fine, even when—" Ratchet had intended to elaborate on Starscream's habit of answering "I'm fine" even when he was escaping from the medbay on all fours because he couldn't walk, but the Seeker didn't seem to be listening anymore. Instead, he had planted his elbows on the console and rested his head in his hands, staring at the farmhouse, which was now magnified sufficiently that individual chickens could be seen scratching in the grass and fluffing themselves in the dust of the front yard. "Hey!" Ratchet said. "I'm not taking no for an answer, so come on."

"Oh, alright! In a few minutes!" Starscream said, not even looking at him. His face was fixed on the computer screen with as eager an expression of anticipation as Ratchet had ever seen.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet asked, wondering if he had stumbled on a clue to Starscream's strange behavior.

"I'm waiting for the most beautiful femme in the whole universe," Starscream breathed, not looking away from the monitor. Ratchet had to replay the sentence a few times before he actually registered its meaning.

"Eh—What?" he exclaimed. "You're serious!" Starscream just nodded impatiently. "...Well, who is it?"

"Buckrinia," Starscream sighed meltingly, and at that instant the chickens on the monitor scattered as old Ms. Buckrinia's car pulled into the front yard. Starscream gasped and stabbed the magnification button until Ms. Buckrinia's pinched visage filled the entire screen—a rather disturbing sight. Even pixelated by the extreme close-up, her face was wrinkled like a sour grape and her eyes glared brightly and suspiciously about as though she knew she was being monitored. And Ratchet was quite certain that none of those wrinkles were smile lines. "I'd give up my wings to be yours," Starscream exclaimed, frantically adjusting the settings in order to keep Ms. Buckrinia in view. "And my rank! And everything else!" But unheeding of his fervid words, Ms. Buckrinia disappeared through the front door of her house. Starscream sighed deeply, optics dimming. _Not possible_ , Ratchet thought, his mind denying what he was seeing and hearing. It was just not possible.

"You're telling me that you're...in love...with _Ms. Buckrinia?!_ " he finally demanded.

"Who wouldn't be?" Starscream said in that same enraptured tone, finally looking away from the viewscreen.

"Ahh, ahhh..." Ratchet couldn't think of anything to say to that. This was _not_ happening.

"But I hope no one is," Starscream said, his face suddenly growing dark. He began to pace in a circle. "A femme like that must have hundreds of suitors. What if she's already spoken for?" He froze rigidly, a panicky expression breaking out on his face.

"No, no—" Ratchet said quickly, trying to forestall a shrill outburst. "She's called _Ms._ Buckrinia for a reason—humans here are called Mrs., not Ms. when they're taken."

"Thank goodness!" Starscream exclaimed. "It's not too late then!"

"Yeah, well, uh..." Ratchet was once again at a loss for words. Then he remembered why he had come. "Hey, you've still got to get a checkup!" Now he was more certain that ever that something was very, very screwed up in Starscream's neurocircuitry. Although notoriously changeable, the Air Commander was not the kind of bot who would fall helplessly in love at the drop of a hat...was he? Surely you couldn't hate someone's guts one moment and then be fervently in love them the next!

"Checkup? I have no time for such trivialities," Starscream declared. "I—"

"That wasn't a request," Ratchet said firmly. "Optimus himself said—"

"Bother Optimus!" Starscream snapped. "I have an important mission and I must carry it out immediately!" Before Ratchet could reply, Starscream had leapt up, transformed into jet mode right there in the command center, and gone streaking off down the corridor.

"Hey, stop him!" Ratchet shouted, transforming and racing down the corridor after the fleeing Seeker. But he was too slow—by the time he reached the exit all that could be seen was a silver dot in the distance and a crowd of stunned Autobots slowly peering up from where they had thrown themselves on the ground. "Don't just lie there!" Ratchet exclaimed. "We've got to go after him!"


End file.
